Building S.F. arena won’t be slam dunk for Warriors

Rendering released on Dec. 10, 2014 showing the Golden State Warriors' proposed new arena in San Francisco's Mission Bay area as it would appear from a bay-front park to be built. The arena would seat 18,000 people, have a view deck, and include a 24,000 square foot public plaza on the southeast side and a 35,000 square foot public plaza on the Third Street side. Completion is slated for the start of the 2018-19 NBA season.

Rendering released on Dec. 10, 2014 showing the Golden State...

In 2012, when the downtown Central Subway debate was raging, a savvy political operative said something smart.

“No one,” he said, “complains about a subway after it is built.”

Which brings us to the proposed Warriors arena. It seems like a slam dunk. There has yet to be any significant neighborhood pushback — there may be some traffic concerns, but most Mission Bay residents seem to be in favor of the retail stores and increased property values it will bring.

The development doesn’t have height limit issues, the basketball team is wildly popular, and that area of the waterfront needs revitalization — so much that even the “no wall on the waterfront” crowd, like former Mayor Art Agnos, approve of the project.

Tim Paulson, executive director of the 100,000-member-plus San Francisco Labor Council, said at a recent Mission Bay Citizens’ Advisory Committee meeting, “We are completely supportive of the Warriors coming to the neighborhood.”

But getting it done is always an ordeal. Lately we’ve been reading Chronicle writer John King’s account of the failed George Lucas museum proposal.

And before that it was the modern art museum of Don Fisher, which was abandoned in 2009 after two years of bickering. (Frankly I wasn’t a huge fan of either, but the point is they were debated to death.)

In the best example, the Giants lost four elections — two in San Francisco, one in Santa Clara and one in San Jose — in their bid to build a new ballpark.

But when the Giants gave up on public participation and financed the park themselves, they created a civic jewel. It revitalized that part of South of Market and created postcard-worthy national TV exposure and an urban entertainment destination. It may be the best enhancement to city life in the past 15 years.

All of which makes the objections by the shadowy Mission Bay Alliance to the Warriors’ arena all the more confounding.

Everyone involved seems puzzled by their endgame. As of this week, the Warriors haven’t heard a word about what this group with ties to UCSF wants.

But that doesn’t mean they can’t gum things up in classic local red tape. Pugnacious, outrageous alliance spokesman Jack Davis has warned, “We have hired the very best CEQA (California Environmental Quality Act) attorneys to go over every single line (of the Warriors’ filing).”

This is in line with Davis’ threat that his group will “litigate until the cows come home,” to stall the project interminably.

So, it might be worthwhile to debunk a few rumors:

First, the alliance is making much of the fact that the Warriors only have an option to buy and have not actually purchased the land.

Photo: Sarah Rice / Special To The Chronicle

The site on Third St. and 16th St. in Mission Bay where the new Warriors arena will go in San Francisco, Calif., on Thursday, August 28, 2014.

The site on Third St. and 16th St. in Mission Bay where the new...

That’s true — for now. Warriors President Rick Welts refused to confirm the numbers I’ve heard — $30 million for the option and a sale price of $150 million to $155 million — but he was adamant about the sale.

“We have the financing and we have an ironclad agreement to buy,” he said. “We are buying the land. Period.”

Second, despite what we’ve heard, this opposition didn’t come out of the blue. Speaking to team majority owner Joe Lacob a month ago, I naively said they were lucky because there weren’t many neighbors in the area to raise objections.

But Lacob said then that there were some “people at UCSF” who might be a problem. And UCSF certainly knew some of their wealthy donors complained bitterly when the Warriors originally secured the option for the land.

The thinking then was that the university and hospital would be able to reason with the alliance members. It couldn’t.

Overall, the arena project concept makes perfect sense. There are people calling this a mere “speed bump” on the road to getting the arena built. But this is dead serious. If anyone needs reminding, let’s return to the Giants.

In 1992, after striking out in San Francisco, the Giants staged a ballpark election in San Jose. Larry Tramutola, a Bay Area strategist, ran the campaign and wrote about it in his book “Sidewalk Strategies.”

“At the start of the campaign,” he wrote, “everything looked positive. The mayor, the city council, the business community, organized labor and the newspapers all supported the measure.”

Sound familiar? But one week before the election, a mailer was sent out. It featured the face of then-Giants owner Bob Lurie with a rectangular opening where his nose should have been.

The mailer suggested voters put Lurie’s face on one of their light switches and think of the wealthy owner every time they hit the switch. The message — “Flip off Bob Lurie.”

The stadium supporters lost that election, and the Giants built the magnificent AT&T Park in San Francisco. And now, 23 years later, San Jose is still trying to get a baseball team.